The present invention relates generally to policy servers for use with provisioning systems having Internet servers.
A provisioning system includes several standalone Internet servers. The Internet servers of a typical provisioning system must be individually configured with each change to the supported quality of service and level of service policies. Unfortunately, if the Internet servers are to support multiple or changing service classes (Internet access products that perform at varying levels of quality and speed) each standalone server must be educated of the new service class before the service class is fully supported by the entire system. This becomes cumbersome when all components of the existing system inherently support the new service but must be manually configured before the service can be made available. Traditionally, product cycles in the Internet provider service industry fall behind advancements in technology. This is due to poorly designed Internet provisioning systems that lag behind the development and deployment of products to keep up with advancements in technology and subscriber demand.
Providing Internet service is one such area where product offerings are driven by technological advances. Much of these advances do not come in any order and, more often than not, entities seeking to benefit financially from them are faced with expensive refitting of their infrastructure. Multiple subscriber organization (MSO) service providers need to be more agile and responsive in the Internet space to expand/retain their growing subscriber base.
In summary, configuring typical provisioning systems is not a scalable process. Essentially it is performed a number of different ways depending on the resources available in each region. Typical provisioning systems are developed based on their individual components and the capability of the components. As a result, provisioning systems must be redesigned with every new feature/product. This is prohibitively expensive to maintain and build upon.
Having a policy management system structured around a clear and identifiable business model enables MSOs to quickly bring new products to market and leverage the readily accessible information about the infrastructure to build and maintain the highest quality of service. Accordingly, what is needed is a policy management system that solves the problems caused by running standalone Internet provisioning servers by linking various aspects of them to a central policy database (CPD).
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a policy management system having a central policy database (CPD) for providing centralized configuration and local management of the policies which control aspects of service and level qualities of standalone Internet provisioning servers.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a policy management system having a CPD for distributing central product definitions to standalone Internet provisioning servers.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a policy management system having a CPD provided with feature objects and product objects in which the products are defined by selected feature combinations.
In carrying out the objects and other objects, the present invention provides a policy management system for an Internet service provider having a plurality of Internet servers in different regions. The system includes a plurality of regional policy databases each associated with the Internet servers in a respective region and a central policy database operable with each of the regional policy databases for providing central definitions to the Internet servers.
Preferably, the central policy database stores a product object and a feature object. The objects of the central policy database are operable with the regional policy databases for providing the central definitions to the Internet servers. The product objects define products supported by the Internet service provider. The feature objects define features of the products supported by the Internet service provider. Preferably, the feature object includes a plurality of feature objects and the product object includes a plurality of product objects. Combinations of feature objects define each product object.
Further, in carrying out the objects and other objects, the present invention provides a policy management system for an Internet service provider having a plurality of Internet servers in different regions. The system includes a plurality of regional policy databases each associated with the Internet servers in a respective region and a central policy database operable with each of the regional policy databases. The central policy database stores a product object, a feature object, a device object, and a subscriber object. The objects of the central policy database are operable with the regional policy databases for providing central definitions to the Internet servers. The device object defines a device supported by the Internet service provider and the subscriber object defines a subscriber supported by the Internet service provider.
These and other objects, features, and advantages will be readily apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.